YET MORE MEAT SCANDALS AND SUPERMARKET LETTER UPDATES

A meat supplier was in the news last week for what appears to be a serious breach of hygiene regulations. The supplier who supplied Wetherspoons, Jamie Oliver resturants, other pub chains and some schools etc remains closed at the present time. This follows an unannounced visit to one of the supplier’s sites on 12th January by the Food Standards Agency (FSA). Links to this story can be found at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42839717 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5309361/Jamie-Olivers-restaurants-dragged-hygiene-scandal.html However, the FSA does not appear to have informed businesses etc, and consumers until 24th January. On the 26th January, the FSA stated in an update “Based on the evidence gathered, we became concerned that there was a more systemic and widespread problem which was more serious in terms of its scale and nature. It was only at this stage issues of serious non-compliance were uncovered” This FSA update can be found at the following link: https://www.food.gov.uk/news-updates/news/2018/16858/fsa-update-on-russell-hume The continual problem with meat hygiene, I believe, requires to be addressed on a national and or collective basis by the meat industry, supermarkets and restaurants etc, and the competent authorities such as the FSA, in order to provide consumers with confidence as they were led to believe, after the horse meat scandal, that this type of problem would not occur again. Keeping meat hygiene inspections independent is vital so that decisions can be made without fear or favour, along with unannounced inspections and audits, enforcement and using the precautionary approach when protecting the consumer. In addition, Openness and Transparency is required by all concerned parties, if this problem is to be addressed effectively. LIDL We wrote to Lidl on 25-1-2018. We received a response on 27-1-2018. Their response is as follows: “Dear Mr Nash
 Re: Your Contact Thank you for contacting our CEO. He has asked that I respond on his behalf. We appreciate your recent feedback regarding recent meat scandals and can totally understand your concerns on this matter. Lidl UK take the issue of food safety extremely seriously. We have been in continuous contact with 2 Sisters to ensure that corrective actions have been taken, including the retraining of all staff. Following our own investigations and the FSA’s separate investigation, we are satisfied with the food safety measures that are in place and we started taking delivery of products from 2 Sisters' site D again from 6th November 2017. We will continue to carry out regular, unannounced audits, as we do with all of our suppliers, and will take appropriate action, should any non-conformance come to our attention. Thank you for your valuable feedback and I hope this helps to allay your concerns and you will remain a valued Lidl customer. Yours sincerely,
 For and on behalf of Lidl UK GmbH”
 We have written back to them, as they have made no mention of their views on keeping meat hygiene inspections independent. We await their clarification. ALDI On 18th January, we sent the fifth letter in our campaign to Aldi’s Group Managing Director, Mr G Hurley. His response dated 25-1-18 is below: “Dear Steve, Many thanks for your letter dated 18th January regarding independent meat hygiene inspections. Ensuring that all of our food is safe for our customers to eat is of the utmost priority for Aldi. All of our suppliers sites are required to hold accreditation to a global food safety standard, and we work closely with our suppliers to ensure they meet strict hygiene standards. Our suppliers are independently audited, with the audit reports reviewed regularly. We consider independent inspections to be a hugely important part of the quality control and hygiene process in meat plants, and that periodic review of these systems are required to make sure that they are sufficiently robust. We believe it to be the FSA’s prerogative as the UK’s official food hygiene body to decide on the nature of its inspections. However, I would like to take this opportunity to assure you that regardless of any changes that may occur, we will continue with our comprehensive quality assurance processes to deliver food of the highest standard to our customers. Thank you once again for contacting us. Yours sincerely, Giles Hurley, Group managing Director” The main point we disagree with Mr Hurley, is that, I believe, it is not solely the FSA’s prerogative to decide on the nature of its inspections, as they are a government funded body funded by the tax payer and were set up to protect the consumer in relation to food safety. Therefore they need to consult with the public as to what they want. The recent scandals, I believe, indicate that the FSA’s systems and processes are not working as efficiently as they should be and perhaps it’s time to consider strengthening their independent inspection processes, in order to protect the consumer. THE CO-OPERATIVE We sent our letter to the Co-op’s Chief Executive Mr S Murrells on 11-1-2018 and are still awaiting a response. MARKS & SPENCER We received a response to our letter dated 4th January 2018 to Chief Executive, Mr. S Rowe. The letter 16-01-2018 was from the Executive Office. It said: “Dear Mr Nash Thank you for writing to Steve Rowe about our meat hygiene standards. As a member of our Executive Office, I hope you don’t mind me replying on Steve’s behalf. I want to assure you that we take hygiene and traceability very seriously, and we have extremely high production standards. We set the same standards for quality and working conditions regardless of where our products are made. All our suppliers are expected to meet our Global Sourcing Principles, and to encourage their own suppliers to implement them. On behalf of Steve Rowe, many thanks for contacting us. Yours Sincerely Executive Office” Whilst we are very pleased to hear that they have high standards in relation to working conditions, this is a very disappointing reply from M&S, as they have avoided the questions as to whether they believe Meat Hygiene Inspections should remain independent, and as I believe, they have a morale obligation to protect their consumers. TESCO We received a response to our letter to Mr D. Lewis, Chief Executive Officer, dated 28th December 2017 on 24 January 2018. We have asked to speak to their Technical Department before publishing their response, which they appear to want to keep confidential. We want to try to encourage them to be more supportive of keeping Meat Hygiene Inspections Independent. SAINSBURY’S We received a reply to our letter to Sainsbury’s Chief Operating Officer, Mr. M Coupe on 04-01-2018 as previously stated on this petition. Sainsbury’s response, for me personally, was very worrying and disappointing, as they appear to have failed in "Conducting a full investigation into the comments you have raised” stated in their letter to us of 03-01-2018. If you use Twitter or Facebook, we would very much appreciate you keep sharing this post. Alternatively, if you wish to bring this update to the attention of your local store(s) managers, this would be greatly appreciated. Thank you all so much, for your continued comments & support.